Quantifi, a provider of risk, analytics and trading solutions recently hosted a webinar, featuring Celent, a leading research and advisory firm, on ‘The Trends Shaping Portfolio and Investment Risk Management’. The webinar, which attracted over 100 delegates from across the buy-side industry, explored several key trends and examined their impact from an investment management technology and operation standpoint.
The investment management industry is in a period of change and stands on the edge of a number of fundamental shifts which will shape the industry going forward. The post global financial crisis environment has been largely favourable for the investment sector in terms of asset gathering, AUM growth and also revenues for the industry as a whole. This has been fuelled by quantitative easing and also by the general appreciation of asset prices globally. Until last year, these favourable conditions have largely masked certain fundamental aspects of the industry’s growth. We see this particularly around the contraction of margins as well as in the business case to address a number of structural challenges and trends that are reshaping the industry.
“Investment firms must now execute offensively, yet play defensively, to enable fit-for-purpose operational strategies and technologies to underpin their alpha generation endeavours”
Cubillas Ding, Research Director, Celent
“A confluence of market and technology factors around changing investment mandates, margin compression, digitization, and technology disruption effects – are altering business economics on a structural, rather than a cyclical basis,” comments Cubillas Ding, Research Director at Celent. “Investment firms must now execute offensively, yet play defensively, to enable fit-for-purpose operational strategies and technologies to underpin their alpha generation endeavours,” continues Cubillas.
The webinar explored several trends including the ongoing shift from active to passive investing and the continued expansion into emerging alternative and illiquid asset classes. This expansion of assets has, in turn, increased demand for tailored, outcome-focused investment solutions and firms are also increasingly inclined to stay operationally lean in an environment of sustained fee compression. The final trend examined the steady influx of FinTech service providers, disrupting aspects of the current asset management value chain.
“At Quantifi, we understand the challenges our clients face and we look for ways to deliver the most advanced solutions that are finely tuned to our clients’ requirements,” comments Avadhut Naik, Head of Solutions, Quantifi. “Our portfolio management Solution (PMS) with broad asset coverage and sophisticated analytics supports the growing trend around bespoke solutions that are highly flexible and can be easily adapted to our customer’s business processes. Our agile approach also enables us to translate emerging technologies into functional solutions for our clients,” continues Avadhut.
About Celent
Celent is a research and advisory firm dedicated to helping financial institutions formulate comprehensive business and technology strategies. Celent publishes reports identifying trends and best practices in financial services technology and conducts consulting engagements for financial institutions looking to use technology to enhance existing business processes or launch new business strategies. Celent is a division of the Oliver Wyman Group, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies.
For further information, please visit www.celent.com